what ds10 is and why it exists.

ds10 is a digital operations consultancy based in Sacramento, California, run by Shel. The name is short for Deep Space Ten, a Star Trek reference that only the people who get it will catch. For everyone else, it reads as a clean, modern tech brand.

The business exists because most small and mid-size businesses are stuck with a fragmented tech stack and no one to manage it. They have a freelance designer who built their site three years ago, an IT person who shows up when something breaks, a marketing tool nobody understands, and three SaaS subscriptions that nobody's used in six months. The cost of that fragmentation is huge, but it's invisible.

ds10 replaces that with a single point of contact who can see the whole picture. Build the website. Wire up the automations. Manage the IT. Source the hardware. Train the staff. The same person who understands the technology also understands the business it's serving.

the background.

Fifteen-plus years across web design, software development, IT support, AV systems, and marketing. Time at agencies and in-house. Heavy current involvement in Webflow, Make.com, and the broader no-code/low-code ecosystem. Also fifteen years of DJing, which is its own kind of operational consulting if you think about it (read the room, deliver the experience, keep things running).

Bootstrapped and operator-led. No outside investment, no board, no quarterly growth targets. Just careful work for clients who appreciate it.

how we work.

• → One advisor, full picture. Website, automations, IT, hardware, training — one person who understands how the pieces fit together in the context of your business. No more juggling vendors who don't talk to each other.
• → Plain answers. When you ask what was built, you get a clear answer in plain English. What it does, what it cost, and what it would take to change it. No buzzword salad, no pretending things are simpler than they are.
• → Right tool for the job. Webflow when content management matters. Custom code when it doesn't. Make.com when automation is the answer. Whatever actually works for your situation, not what's trendy to build.
• → Built for the long run. The most valuable work happens after the initial build, when the business changes and the tools need to change with it. We work on retainer, not on one-off projects.